Upper primary government schools of state to get English corners

The Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) authority has embarked on an innovative statewide project to create good environment for English learning in the upper primary government schools.

The authority has approved a grant of `62.53 lakhs for 6253 upper primary schools of the state for establishing English corners.

According to information available, each school has been given a grant of `1000, to make a corner which would be equipped with materials, including content-based workable and still models, board games, picturebooks, pronunciation charts, English newspapers, stationeries, content-based CDs and other aids, which would facilitate teaching and learning of the language.

Officials informed that all schools had been allotted two months' duration to set up the corners, which will be followed by review and checking.

Assistant state project director, English, SSA, Ginni Duggal said, "The initiative is intended to improvise communication skills, grammar and interest of students in the language from basics. The teachers can use educational tools from the corners to create more interest among the students."

Meanwhile the SSA authority in order to create more communicative environment for the students and to utilize their quality time, have given the schools a list of 35 suggested items that can be included in the corners.

Duggal said, "We plan to take this project forward to the next session as well, and after mid-January district project coordinators would inspect the schools, take pictures of the corners and assess the progress and impact of the corners. During our review meeting with the centre we would present our report on English corners."

Officials informed that the project had already got the school authorities working and thinking on modules which would encourage students for greater participation in activities and studies that involve the usage of the language.

District English improvement project co-ordinator Inderpreet Singh said: "Students from rural as well as urban areas don't converse in English in their daily life, so they are not familiar with its communicative usage. They have a phobia about the language. However these corners would help them to overcome their fear of the language."